Game of Thrones S1 DVD/Blu-ray debuts at no. 2 on the charts

Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season was the second highest selling home video set of the week, according to Nielsen VideoScan. The sales for the Thrones box set were topped only by the action flick Immortals. Nielsen also reports that around 57% of the sales for Thrones were for the Blu-ray version. Not surprising considering it was only $5 more expensive than the DVD at most retailers and the Blu-ray had a bunch more special features.

As a point of reference, the first season of Boardwalk Empire debuted at a distant third on the best seller list with only 39% of its sales for the Blu-ray version. Nielsen doesn’t give out exact numbers, so we will have to wait for other outlets to report them to get a more accurate picture.

Winter Is Coming: A solid debut. I thought it had a chance at being no. 1 but no. 2 is not bad. I imagine it will have some legs, as more people get intrigued about the show with season two marketing now in full swing. Those EW covers may help too.

This is really good, Immortals was always going to beat GoT on this chart. I already read reports that Immortals was selling like crazy the first couple of days of its release and that it was the hardest-selling bluray of 2012. It’s a very good sign GoT is only 25% behind it and leaving all the competition at a big distance with almost selling twice as much as the number 3 Footloose.

Edit: I also read that Nielsen doesn’t produce the numbers because Wallmart won’t give their sales-details, and since Wallmart sells about 40% of all the DVD’s and Blurays you can only estimate very roughly and with a big margin of error how much copies are sold. This is what the-numbers.com does.

I was going to say the same thing. Considering the difference in price, GoT has probably brought in more money than Immortals, overall. I’m guessing GoT probably costs about twice as much, so HBO has to be happy about that. Those are big numbers for a 5 disc set.

Knurk pretty much said everything I was about to say. From what I read elsewhere online, after only 24 hours of sales, Immortals was reportedly on track to be the bestselling disc of 2012. So for the sales of Game of Thrones to be running 24% behind that with a more expensive price tag is pretty damn solid.

Pretty disappointing that a movie like Immortals, which wasn’t a huge blockbuster hit beat Game of Thrones. Maybe it’s not quite as popular as I was hoping, at least not in America. I wonder what the actual sales numbers are though and how it compares to other shows DVD/Blu Rays sales.

Immortals, huh? I wouldn’t have guessed. But then, predicting DVD sales is kind of a fool’s game. Or at least best left to the experts.

Last year the 10th highest seller was the actioner Red, with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren. It was the 39th highest grossing film worldwide. Immortals by contrast was 26th, although the overall take was about the same.

What’s interesting is Immortals hasn’t done very well on Amazon – it currently ranks 50th. So we’re definitely seeing some kind of online/offline divide.

People who shop on Amazon tend to be more tech savvy and educated. People who buy DVDs from Wal-Mart, not so much. People who are more educated tend to not be interested in mindless crap like Immortals.

I was expecting a 2nd or 3rd but was hoping for numero uno. One thing I noticed in the stores, especially Best Buy and Walmart, that Immortals was placed in a big display right up front, while GoT was located on a shelf behind the Immortals (Best Buy actually blocked the GoT dvd’s with Immortals and Footloose).
It shows that Fox paid big bucks to Best Buy to display and block out the other titles being released. Money talks. (Is this legal, by the way, seems like unfair trade practice?)
What was interesting is that there were less than a dozen copies left. half BlueRay of GoT while there was still perhaps 200 of Immortals left and it was 11 in the morning.
The cashier girl didn’t even know about GoT before the dvd sales, and said the all the preorders were picked up and they hopefully would get a new shipment in by the next day.
I explained how GoT was one of the best tv shows ever, very adult, mature but also fun to watch while being intriquing to boot. So I bought her a copy, figuring she couldn’t afford one.
Hopefully one more fan to add and more if she likes it and shows to others.

Luck is cancelled? I haven’t seen it yet, but I was interested in watching the series because of the people involved. David Milch just doesn’t have any… ahem… luck with HBO. At least he got three seasons of Deadwood… oh, how I miss that show.

I really wanted Luck to be good. My parents raised me on horse racing. Gave it two episodes. Half the characters spoke in these hushed mumbles, which I expected from Nolte, but not Hoffman. Thought it was kinda boring. Really sucks about the horses.

It doesn’t surprise me that it was beat by Immortals. Does it deserve to be beat by Clash of the Titans 2.0? Absolutely not, but I worked the day they were released (cashier at Target) and had several copies of Immortals come through my line, and no copies of Thrones :(
I think there are a lot more stereotypical ALRIGHTMINDLESSVIOLENCEANDCGI-bros out there who eat up shit like Immortals.

you actually bought a complete stranger a copy of Game of Thrones on DVD?

Awesome!!!!

I was about to say the same!!!

Tysnow you have to go back and ask her how did she liked the show!!

Also, I’d really like to see the overall sale figures, specially how many copies they sold in USA and in Europe, just to see the ratio…so there’s no wayt to know how many copies Wallmart sells? Clearly HBO will end up knowing them right?

PS: I wouldn’t be too bothered about this or that movie beating GoT…the important figure is the overall number of copies sold

I got my Blu-Ray yesterday. It’s an amazing set, one of the best I’ve seen for any series.
The commentaries are fun, especially the one with Lena Headey, Mark Addy and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Lena Headey is in love with the f-word, it seems …

Just admit it, the main reason why you bought this girl a copy is because you want to go out with this girl? Am I right or am I right?

Being inspired by tysnow, I bought a homeless man a copy. That’s right, I didn’t give him food or money, I bought him the complete season one of Game of Thrones on DVD, just to show how I’m a big fan of GoT. Now give me some praises and tell me how cool I am, people.

Just admit it, the main reason why you bought this girl a copy is because you want to go out with this girl? Am I right or am I right?

Being inspired by tysnow, I bought a homeless man a copy. That’s right, I didn’t give him food or money, I bought him the complete season one of Game of Thrones on DVD, just to show how I’m a big fan of GoT. Now give me some praises and tell me how cool I am, people.

Even if tysnow had such an ulterior motive, it does not make what he did any less cool.

tysnow:
On another note…..HBO just cancelled Luck, hopefully they won’t pressure BE, GoT and TB to make up the slack because of the money spent on Luck.

I saw an article in TV Guide that Luck was cancelled due to accidents with horses. With all of the horses in GoT, I sure hope GoT is accident-free and doesn’t come under any of the same fire that Luck did!!!

In episode 5 when Robert is at a small council meeting to discuss Dany getting pregnant.. why is he so obsessed with killing Daenerys because she may have a son, when in fact at this point Viserys IS STILL ALIVE! [he dies at the end of episode 6!]. Shouldn’t Robert be more concerned with killing Viserys, a male Targaryen, who can lead the army now, rather than Dany’s son, who may lead an army in 20years?!?!

but Viserys had given Drogo Dany for a Dothraki army.. How is Robert supposed to know that the Dothraki did not keep up their end of their bargain?

and answer me this.. If Lysa killed Jon Arryn , why is she so angry that Cat brought Tyrion to0 the Eryie. she was so convinced that Tyrion/Lannister’s killed Jon that she put him on trial… Does she have Alzheimer’s/Huntington’s or something? SHE POISONED JON ARRYN HERSELF!

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but does anyone know if there’s a difference between the original version and international versions. I just ordered the Dutch/French version (no creditcard so no Amazon) and it was a ridiculous amount cheaper than the original version which is odd unless it contains less material. The website I ordered it from didn’t mention anything about what special features are on it but it did mention it was a five disc set. Same as the original. So does any of you guys know if there are differences between the versions?

Does the same thing go for DVD box sets? Cause I bought the DVD not the Blu-Ray. I know I’m missing out but I just don’t have the money to buy a Blu-Ray player right now and I don’t own any kind of playstation. (I hear you can also play Blu-Rays on those)

Robert et al were receiving information from Jorah. This information would have made it clear that the Dothraki were heading in the wrong direction and were no immediate threat. It was also well known that the Dothraki despise salt water and would never cross. It all seemed very unrealistic – Robert and Ned cover these bases in their conversation on the way south – even with this deal brokered, it was very unlikely the Dothraki would ever invade. But when Dany became pregnant, it became a much more likely proposal – her child would be raised by her, and when he inevitably (in Robert’s eyes) became Khal, he would invade to take back his throne.

As for Lysa, it is obvious. The one thing she cares about most in the world is her son. She keeps all the knights of the vale out of the war to protect him – as such, Catelyn bringing the imp (and therefore the army of Tywin Lannister) to the Eyrie was terrifying for her.

Hey, not precisely on topic here, but just discovered this great interview with GRRM done by the wonderful Canadian late night talk show host George Strombo. This link contains the extended interview with stuff that didn’t make it on the TV show. Good stuff!

Hey thanks for that. Great interview. The interviewer (who’s name I will not mention cause I’m sure I’m gonna misspel it) really got some good questions. And of course GRRM is awesome like always. So looking forward to his commentary on ep8

Here in Croatia pricetag is 300 kunas or, converted – 52 dollars! And that’s for the DVD version!! Do I even have to compare average salaries? With normal price they could at least count on fans buying it, but now I know I won’t. And they wonder why there is so much piracy. :D

Well… officialy that would be considered as 5.5% of average salary. But problem with average figures here is that there are far more people under average and far less people above, but they are way above. So if u cosider middle class that is 7-8% of an average monthly salary.

OK, so… I’m a nerd. In more ways than one. But who isn’t around here? Anyway, I realized it might be possible to ballpark GoT’s disc sales through the information that is available. Extremely ridiculous, lengthy post to follow.

Home Media Magazine releases its data in index form – so for example, we know that GoT sold 76% as many discs as Immortals last week. We also know from the same chart that Puss in Boots, which has been out for 3 weeks, sold 33% as many discs as Immortals. So GoT sold 2.3x as many discs as Puss in Boots (.76/.33)

And there’s data out for Puss in Boots. In its first week it sold 851,000 DVDs and about 568,000 blu-rays (Blu-ray share of 39%); in the second it sold 797,000 DVDs and about 504,000 blu-rays. Total of 2,720,000 discs through two weeks – 1.42 million in week 1, 1.3 million in week 2. So all we have to do is project PnB’s week three totals and we can back out the sales for Immortals and GoT.

But! project PnB week three is not totally straightforward. DVD sales seem to have half lives; the typical decline, for big hits, seems to be 50% or more per week. So for instance the latest Twilight movie sold 2.4 million DVDs as preorders, 1.4 million its first week, 489,000 its second week, and 216,000 it’s third week (all from the-numbers.com). PnB by contrast had a much slower decline, but that’s probably because a) it doesn’t seem to have had many preorders to speak of, and b) it was released on a Friday (Feb. 24), when most discs are released on Tuesdays.

So taking that into account, I think it’s likely that PnB saw a very steep decline in its third week, or really it’s week 2.5. I could try to do a fancy calculation, but it’s simpler and more straightforward to just do a sensitivity analysis. PnB sold 1.3 million discs last week. So for this week –

If it dropped 90%, that would mean ~130,000 units for PnB, and 299,000 for GoT (130k*2.3).
If it dropped 80%: that would mean ~260,000 units for PnB, and 598,000 for GoT.
If it dropped 65%: that would mean ~455,000 units for PnB, and 1.04 million for GoT.
If it dropped 50%: that would mean ~650,000 units for PnB, and 1.49 million for GoT.

I doubt the last is likely – I’d be very surprised if PnB dropped less than 65%. But even 299,000 is quite good for a TV series in its first week, and the higher numbers are extraordinary. By contrast, True Blood S3 sold 611,000 units its first week. The Walking Dead, 279,000 units.

Actually, I’m not so sure. The 350,000 may be referring to DVD’s only, and 57% of GoT’s sales were blu-rays. That would suggest a possible total of 813,000 disks in week 1.

That said, I remember reading that True Blood sold well over 1.6 million discs in its first season, though I’m not sure how many of those were in the first week. The disc market has declined significantly since then, however.

The Kingslayer:
Luck was canceled because during the shoot three horses died !!!!it’s ratings weren’t that great either round about 475,000 but it was expected to be renewed because of the star power involved.

It was renewed after its premiere. The cancellation came while shooting season 2.